


An Alternative Ending

by sunsetrose20



Series: Once Noble [5]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Non-Linear Narrative, POV First Person, Unplanned Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-14
Updated: 2020-06-14
Packaged: 2021-03-03 19:48:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,364
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24721114
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunsetrose20/pseuds/sunsetrose20
Summary: An alternative ending for Love Is Never Spoken Here in which Sigyn is pregnant with Loki's child at the end.
Relationships: Loki/Sigyn (Marvel)
Series: Once Noble [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1672765
Kudos: 8





	An Alternative Ending

**Author's Note:**

> Thoughts, ideas, comments, and constructive criticism are always welcome.

This is wrong. Everything about it is wrong. This was never our place. Nothing about this place is ours. It was Loki's, of course, and, legally, it is mine now, but that's a stretch. If anything, I am betraying our memory by coming to live here. I know this place, but it is nothing I ever shared with Loki as the family we came to be. Or, should I say “the family we could have been” instead? This will be the first time Váli ever steps a foot in here, so this place holds no connection to Loki whatsoever. Not for Váli. 

Why did I agree to do this?

~°•°~

Loki is and will forever be the stupidest and sorriest person I have ever and will ever meet. Do I get off on insulting a dead man? Why, yes, I do. That fucking bastard is dead on one of his whims, and what about me? What about us? The idiot couldn't keep a promise even if his life, or that of his children's, depended on it.  _ Don't leave me _ . That was all I ever asked of him.  _ You will stay with us. Have no one but me. _ It was more of an order, but the asshole had liked orders when they were coming from me. All that ranting about being a free spirit was just more of his bullshit. The proof is right here in my hands.

A golden apple. How could I have known what a golden apple means to the nobles? To me, and to any other person, a golden apple means longevity. To the nobles, a golden apple also means fertility. But what else do they mean? They mean love. Problem? What I had with Loki wasn't love. I don't know what it was, but it wasn't love. Loki didn't bother to tell me the truth about the apple, and he had his own weird ways of asking me to marry him, but… but I am no longer the naïve girl that believes in fairytales. Loki is dead while I am not. There is no getting Loki on the right path and there is no falling in love with a prince. End of story.

I sigh, putting the apple back in its place with my other forgotten treasures. I go as far as sliding the box back under the bed I shared with Loki before remembering that no. In a matter of hours, this will no longer be our house, though it stopped being Loki's when he decided to commit treason over staying with our children and me. 

That is the real problem, I think as I cradle my swollen belly. Our child together will never know its father except for the curses of his name, and Loki will never even know I bore him a child. A son, it is suspected. A brother for Váli and Sleipnir.

It is getting difficult not to think of Loki with his child constantly abusing my insides. He should be here with me. Here to alleviate whatever ache the pregnancy brings. He should be here rubbing my feet and obsessing over our new arrival. He should be here to encourage our child's development, to stress over the construction of the nursery, to sing to our child. The truth is that I can't do it. Any of it. It all reminds me of him. I keep expecting him to pop back in anytime now, to slip into our bed with one hand coming to pet my belly and his voice humming in approval at the movement within. When I come out to the kitchen to cook for Váli, I hope with all I have that Loki will be sitting at the table, up and about, reading and scribbling over documents, only to be disappointed every time he's not there. Sometimes, I even hope to find him sleeping on the couch just to yell at him to get his skinny ass over to the bed, and Loki would do it. He did almost everything I asked of him because maybe he had loved me, but what good was it? Loki didn't renounce his title nor surrender when everything went to shit. Maybe this I learnt from him, but I would rather see him locked up in a cell than not know what became of his body.

Loki abandoned our sons and me. Not even for Sleipnir he stayed. I would think that if not for me or for Váli, for Sleipnir. But, apparently, neither Sleipnir nor the home I gave him were enough to prevent Loki from throwing himself off the Bifröst. It makes me feel like a failure, and isn't that what I am? As a woman, as a “wife,” I failed to provide Loki with a home that made him happy, that was fulfilling for him. If it weren't for his mother, I wouldn't know what to do.

I am Loki's widow, and yet we never married. Twice Loki asked; twice I refused. In my defense, I didn't know Loki was asking for my hand in marriage when he gifted me with the apple. How could I? Loki said he wished to prolong my life, not that he wished to marry me. The idiot went as far as to say that he would give me another apple for my future husband. Why make such an offer if he wanted to be said husband? 

As I said, Loki was an idiot like that. 

Then, there was the time Loki asked me outright after becoming a traitor to the crown. And, for the record, I would have married him if Loki had agreed to stay. But, he didn't. In fact, the idiot is dead. That’s what everyone says, but this isn't the first time Loki is rumored to be dead. He can't have survived the fall, I know, but Loki knew necromancy. Surely, he found a way to return in case he finally got himself killed. Loki must have known that was an eventuality. No, that’s hoping for too much. But, I'm not hoping. I know. Why won't Frigga listen to me?

They, people in general, pity me not for bearing a posthumous child, but they pity me for bearing Loki's offspring. How can they blame me for falling? If only it hadn't been for Loki. Do they think I don't regret it? Well, I don't, actually, but sometimes. Sometimes I do. I don't regret keeping his child, or his brother's for that matter. We probably wouldn't have had a chance to live together if I had aborted Váli. Loki wouldn't have forgiven me, I suspect. I wouldn't have been able to forgive myself if I aborted Loki's child, though I was warned the child might not actually be born a babe. 

Other than Sleipnir, Loki didn't speak of his children. I learnt of them from the king and queen when they warned me of the risks of carrying Loki's child to term. But, it’s Loki's. We have so little of him. He left so little of him behind. For all we know, the babe will be born with ten fingers and ten toes, which I'm sure will be the case. And Odin, like Thor but unlike Frigga, believes Váli to be Loki's biological son. To them, Váli is proof that Loki could sire (or bear) something other than an animal. The king said that as long as we didn't use Loki's seiðr to conceive, which we didn't since this is another unplanned pregnancy, our child should be born humanoid. Not that it would matter to me. 

That’s the reason why I was declared to be Loki's widow, the reason why Thor carried our belongings out and away from our home. They said they want to be close to Loki’s children, for Váli to have a better education, to ensure my children want for nothing, for me to keep my job. Maybe Frigga does, maybe even Thor, but Odin just looks tired. As far as I am concerned, what they want is to keep an eye on Loki's unborn child, and not in a good way, mind. If what they are saying were true, then why did they never bother to bond with Sleipnir until now? Is Loki's death really what it took? What about his other children? Where are they?

It is better if I don't meet them, I conclude. I don't want to see. I apologise to Loki wherever he is, but I don't want to see the half-rotten girl Loki-

“Is everything done here?” Thor asks from the doorway. 

In more ways than one, I think as I wipe away a few stray tears. I cup my belly with one hand and use the other to help myself rise to my feet. If Loki were here, he would have fussed over helping me. I don’t want the same treatment from Thor. Then, I pick up the treasure box I left on the bed. All boxes of what little we had are already in Loki's chambers at the palace. Everything Loki ever brought to our home has been taken back to the prison he fought to escape. The furniture we are leaving for the house’s next occupants. What need have we for such things when Loki's chambers are fully-furnished?

The problem is that Loki's chambers aren't home. Not even to Loki himself. Nothing in that place was truly his, much less ours. The enormous bed isn't the warm one Loki shared with me, the elegant sofa isn't the worn couch Loki sat on to tell Váli stories, the meticulously organized study isn't the old desk Loki pushed through the door one day, and the polished tables aren’t the scratched one Loki sat at only for me to poke him until he ate enough to make me happy. 

Why did I agree to do this?

This is wrong. Everything about it is wrong. It should be Loki here. Not Thor. Why is Thor here and not Loki? It should be Loki. It should have always been Loki. Why is Váli playing and laughing with Thor when it was Loki who raised him? Loki was his father. Not Thor. Fuck blood. It should be Loki laughing with Váli and carrying out boxes, looking over his shoulder to assure himself that I am right behind them, ready to move into our new home. One big enough to house our growing family. 

So, if anyone is listening, why is Thor alive, beaming at my son, while Loki is dead, lost in the abyss?

~°•°~

I'm not sure why I did it: Why I went to her of all people. To the woman who let her own son’s mouth be sewn shut. I could have confessed to Lady Eir; instead, I walked through the palace halls with my back straight and my chin up, as Loki always urged me to, and stepped into the queen’s weaving room without bothering to knock. None of the guards made a move to stop me. Did they remember me? 

Who cared?

My resolve thinned when Frigga studied me with a curious gaze, head slightly cocked. Dare I say Loki looked at me like that when I was his student?

“I'm pregnant. It's Loki's,” I announced to the room at large, uncaring if Frigga's handmaidens heard. 

And hear they did. They all froze on their spots, their greedy ears hanging on to Frigga's response. Shame. Frigga dismissed them with a wave of her hand. 

Loki would have done that, too.

“Please, Sigyn, sit. There is much we must discuss.”

I complied, sitting down on the same chair I used to for our lessons. I feared Frigga would ask me—order me, actually—to get rid of the child. But what did the queen do? Slowly, carefully, she rose from her seat to kneel before me, reaching out to grasp my hands. What did the queen ask me? To move. To the palace. To Loki's chambers. To take the mantle of widow. What did I reply?

I stumbled over my words.

“But, Váli… he isn't…“

“No-one needs to know he is not related to Loki by blood. No-one needs to know you did not marry my son.”

“But you don't even-"

“I know enough.”

~°•°~

Later that day, after meeting Odin in person for the first time, I walked home thinking that if Frigga knew Váli is actually Thor’s son (and if she wanted to know, she would), then she would think differently of me. Poorly. I don't want to say the word I have in mind. I refuse to think of myself like that, which is why I understand why Loki didn't want to disclose the details of his other children to me. But, now that I know (from his parents, no less. I hope he finds that embarrassing), I have to remember that that isn't the Loki I knew. Just like the Loki who tried to commit genocide isn't the Loki who couldn't sleep unless he had Vali on his chest. Can I truly be blamed for wishing to see the good side of him? Of the man that an official document now says is my deceased husband?

~°•°~

Before I know it, I'm walking the old, familiar path to Loki's chambers, one hand intertwined with Váli's, the other resting on my rounded stomach, guards and servants bowing their heads as we pass by as if Váli and I were coming home, as if they held the smallest ounce of respect for Loki, as if they didn't pity me. I don't deny that Loki is mostly to blame for people losing what respect they had for him, having experienced it firsthand, but I don't do pity. Especially not when I know what it's been said of my son and me. 

How long since I walked into this wing of the place? Centuries. How long since someone lived here? Almost a decade. 

The place is so clean it is unnatural. The servants can claim it is due to their excellent work, but the truth is that Loki stopped living here years ago. How did nobody notice? Loki was always good at hiding things from people, myself included. 

This is wrong. Everything about it is wrong.

~°•°~

As I unpack a few of our things, stopping every once in a while to stare at Loki's bedroom, a place I had never entered before, Frigga sits in a rocking chair she ordered be brought into the room with a sleeping Váli in her arms. To say I am having second thoughts would be the understatement of the millennium. I don't have trouble thinking of this place as Loki's because I don’t doubt that it was. For millennia, this was Loki's home. What I struggle to do is to think of his chambers as Váli's and mine. It was so strange to watch as Loki's clothes, for instance, were taken out of our closet to be brought back here to join Loki's other three-quarters of garments. It's just ridiculous. Both the fact that Loki has, though Frigga wants me to say  _ had _ , so many clothes and that Loki's things have been moved from our home back to his chambers.

Anyway, I think as I sit down on the edge of Loki's ridiculously fluffy bed with my treasure box in my shaky hands, it's not like I always think of Loki in the present tense. I sometimes think of Loki as someone who  _ was _ as opposed to someone who  _ is _ . I take the top off the box and set it down next to me on the bed, and I stare at my treasures. A drawing of my parents, Váli's first lock of hair, a locket from my first love interest, Midgardian paper figures I did with Loki, friendship bracelets I made with my friends back in the day, a weird cubic puzzle Loki let me steal from him, the drawing of us Váli gave me for safekeeping, and the golden apple.

“Why didn't you want to marry my son?” Frigga asks me quietly, proving that it was a lie when she said she knew enough.

I look at her with an even gaze and reply, “Loki never made clear his intentions to marry me.”

Frigga sighs. She doesn't know Loki proposed while Thor was banished and she doesn't understand Loki didn't propose when he gave me the apple. Why, Frigga wants to know, didn't I want to marry her son? Because Loki didn't ask. But, Frigga doesn't believe that because guess what? The day Loki gifted me with the apple before leaving for fucking Jötunheimr, Loki left the palace with every intention to ask after an hour of Frigga convincing him that I would accept. That story about my family calling off the engagement? Fake. Spread only after Loki completed the errand that required him to travel to Jötunheimr and failed to show up for dinner that day, or the day after, or the day after that.

“What about when he gave you children?”

I shake my head and cover my treasure box again. I think we both know that they would have never allowed me to marry Loki after I became pregnant with Váli. At least not with Loki's history with children. 

Loki was such an idiot.

~°•°~

I am laying down in Loki's bed, propped up on his pillows, when I first hear the news from one of Loki's servants. Interestingly enough, she seems excited by the prospect. Unlike the other guards and servants of the palace who don't know me except as “Prince Loki's magically appearing wife,” the ones who worked for Loki remember me as his student and don't doubt that we were in a relationship these last years, though I am unsure as to how accurate that last part is. Since I moved here about four months ago, I have reevaluated my opinion of Loki's guards and servants. They do pity me, but they are also willing to remember the good sides of Loki, and that's something I can live with. Two children and a wife means this wing of the palace is yet to be completely dishonored. The rest of the palace staff and I, however, do not mix. 

“Mommy?” Váli questions from his spot on the floor where he had been playing with some new toy Thor must have gotten for him, snapping me out of my contemplation. 

Numb, I ask the woman, “Would you mind repeating that for me?”

She doesn't, of course. She's excited, and when my brain processes the information as best it can and I throw the quilts off my body to stand up, she helps me to my feet instead of protesting.

They have to be lying, I think. It can't be true. They are lying. He can't be back. I have hoped… so much… so damn much…. I have cried so much for him, and he knows how much I hate crying. But, I was right. Loki has come back. He has come back to me. Well, not me,  _ me _ . Loki isn't even on Asgard at the moment. He is on Midgard. Now that the Bifröst has been fixed, getting Loki back should be no problem. But, why is the idiot on Midgard when I am near to bursting with his child?

In fact, I should be in bed, but the maid recognizes my need to see him. Neither Váli nor I are able to resist the urge to run (not literally. I'm too heavy for that right now) to the throne room. Along the way, Vali tells everyone who will listen, and everyone who will not, that his papa is coming home. “Just in time to meet your baby brother,” I add and Váli nods eagerly and beams like the sun before the doors to the throne room are opened. 

Isn't this what we had hoped for? What we thought was impossible? Then, why is everyone so somber? Why is Thor in his battle regalia?

“Sigyn-" Frigga tries, but the lack of a smile is all I need to know. 

“I'm going with you,” I inform Thor, my tone leaving no room for argument. “You will take me to Loki.”


End file.
